Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:04:53 -0600
From: J Wolfstone
Subject: Sons of Sparta, Book 3 - Chapter 19
Sons of Sparta - A Story of the Spartans, Book 3
(inspired by the story 'Spartan' parts 1 through 4)
by argouru
Note: All credit for the creation of the Spartans and Amazons, as well as
the Spartan mythos belongs to the author 'CF', to whom I owe special thanks
for his allowing me to write about these incredible people.
WARNING: Portions of this installment of the series includes a section
regarding mental illness.
19.
Fred, predictably, teased John relentlessly, trying to stuff as many
condoms down the back of John's pants as he could, until his siring father
smacked him so hard across the back of his head that the teenager went
sprawling. "Fuck, Dad Daniel... I was only joking!" he retorted grumpily,
rubbing his stinging head defensively.
"Then tell jokes that are actually funny!" the parent retorted sourly,
shaking his head in disgust.
John said nothing, feeling too guilty as he stood there in the black dress
slacks and shoes with a dark blue long-sleeve shirt with buttons down the
front. He felt as though he was about to have a job interview, not go out
on a date with his partner. Sam complimented John on his appearance,
saying he looked very handsome, which only made the human even more
uncomfortable.
"You look nice," Ash said with a nod of approval.
"Yeah," Fred added. "They'll look really nice on the floor."
"Fred," Sam said coldly to his child. "If you're going to act like a
nightmare, go put on your sweater first!"
Fred rolled his eyes in disgust. "What?" John asked, wondering what a
sweater had to do with nightmares.
"I'll tell you later," Fred said, sighing in disgust.
Just then, the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," William said, leaping to his
feet and running for the door. They all heard a crash a moment later.
"I'm alright," Will called out from the foyer.
A few moments later, Henry followed his youngest sibling into the room,
looking very beautiful in a green shirt, brown slacks and shoes. He stared
at John for several moments, struck speechless at how handsome his partner
looked. "Wow," he said softly in a near whisper. "You look great."
"Psst!" Fred said, holding out a condom to Henry, who looked down at it,
blushed furiously and shoved his obnoxious brother aside so hard the
teenager went barreling over the couch. "Ow!" he said, getting back up and
rubbing his head. "Pardon the fuck out of me for trying to be helpful!"
Sam walked over to him. "Quiet!" he whispered fiercely. "Stop wrecking
your brother's evening with relentless sex jokes. If you can't behave
yourself then go to your room."
"Alright!" Fred said, looking shocked at his birth father's reaction.
John and Henry were oblivious, unable to stop staring at each other. "Well
then," Daniel said. "We'll see you guys later. Have fun!"
Henry and John left quietly and got into the Spartan's car. "You like
Chinese food?" Henry asked.
"Sure," John said. It had been quite a while since he'd been able to
afford Panda Express and had started to miss it.
The restaurant they arrived at wasn't Panda Express, though. It was a
fancy eatery with murals on the walls, paper lanterns hanging from the
ceiling and ornately carved wooden screens. John felt his jaw drop in
shock, wondering how he was going to afford eating at a place like this.
"I've been here before. It's not a ritzy place, but nice all the same"
Henry said. He looked around, scanning the room for threats automatically.
"You alright?" John asked, noting Henry's behavior. "What are you looking
for?"
"Nothing," the Spartan said. "It's just always good to know where the
exits are, spot any potential troublemakers and what have you." He noted
John staring at him, looking confused at his behavior. "Sorry, warrior's
instincts."
"Instincts?" John asked.
"Well, we Spartans are designed for battle. Well honed instincts are one
of our genetic traits. Sorry if that seems a bit strange to you. Is this
place alright with you?"
Seeing as how this was the nicest place John had ever been to eat, he could
only feel shock at the Spartan's idea of average dining. "This is fine by
me," he said simply.
They opened the menus and John blanched. Everything here was ten to twenty
dollars per plate. *There goes the rest of my money until my first
payday,* he thought sadly.
"Something wrong?", Henry asked, seeing John's expression. Then he seemed
to realize. "John, I've got this. Order anything you want."
"I can't let you do that," John protested.
"John, you haven't even started your new job yet. It's alright. "I'll get
this one. If it means that much to you, you can take me out somewhere
after your payday, alright?"
"Okay," John said, feeling slightly better.
They ordered, then talked for some time, learning more about each other on
a more personal level. Before, Henry had done most of the talking,
educating John about his kind and relating their history, beliefs and core
values. This time, they talked about their interests, learning that they
had similar tastes in loving science fiction, animation and reading.
Hating sports, they both liked to sit back, relax and enjoy movies and
television. As John had never felt very safe at home growing up and
Henry's job was so active and involved lots of travel, they were both
homebodies by nature now and found that they were content to cuddle at home
rather than be out in nature or doing anything with lots of activity.
"Guess I'm pretty lazy for a Spartan," Henry joked.
"Well I won't complain," John said simply. "I'm the indoors type of guy
myself."
"You never get out of the house much?"
"Well, my old job was outside, obviously, but growing up I was outside as
much as possible. It was sa-... I just liked being outside a lot and now
it's nice to be inside all the time."
Henry looked at his partner with concern. "John, what's the real reason
you were outdoors all the time as a kid?" he asked softly. "What were you
really going to say?"
John hung his head, looking at the design in the tablecloth. "It was safer
than being at home," he admitted with difficulty. He looked up with effort
and was stunned at the look on Henry's face.
The man looked half saddened and half furious. It took several moments
before he was able to speak, but the Spartan took a long drink of water and
spoke. "John, you don't ever have to be afraid of any of us. I know we
Spartans are a lot stronger than humans, but none of us will ever hurt you.
Family is everything to us. Back in the old days, from what I was told
growing up, all a Spartan had to rely on was his family. No one else could
be trusted with the truth about us. Only our human partners could be told
about our kind and only once we were absolutely sure that they were our
true partners. Nowadays, it's getting easier, but there's still a lot of
tension from humanity about us, so family still means everything to us.
You're family too, now, John. None of us could ever hurt you."
"I'm trying to understand that, but it's hard," John said sadly, running
his finger along the side of his water glass. "I still expect people to
start screaming at each other and break things. Whenever they started
doing that, I always either snuck out of the house or hid in my room and
did my best to ignore it all until they stopped. Henry... That's one
ground rule I want to make for us. I'll talk, but never argue with you. I
just... I can't handle screaming and yelling. I won't fight with you
ever. I'll debate and talk, but if you're angry, you take that elsewhere
and come back once you're calmed down. Please?" he asked, a haunted look
in the human's eyes.
Henry was very saddened by that look, and reached across the table until
John took his offered hand. "I promise," he said softly, looking John in
the eye. He saw John return the stare uncomfortably, so Henry broke the
gaze for him, recalling that John never seemed to want to look anyone in
the eye for very long at a time.
The food arrived then and the uncomfortable moment broke as they began to
eat. *He's been through so much,* Henry thought solemnly as they went to
work on their food. *Was he abused a lot?* Henry recalled how the first
and only time he'd seen John's mother and her boyfriend, they had behaved
very cruelly to the man, Jerry even trying to hit John. *He probably was
and doesn't want to remember. I wish he'd talk to me about it. No matter
how painful his life has been, I really want to know so that I can
understand him better. It's like he's afraid to get close to anyone, even
me. He's always expecting someone to hurt him...*
As the meal progressed, Henry shifted the conversation to hobbies. It
turned out that John was an avid gamer, whether it was card games, board
games or video games. "You really love games that much, huh?" Henry asked
with a smile.
"Yeah," John admitted happily. "I had tons of them. There was this old
Arkham Horror series where you ran around the board to various locations
dodging or fighting all these gross monsters based on H. P. Lovecraft's
books and went to places from the same books trying to find the way to stop
one of several monster gods from conquering the world, and one where you
built a haunted house room by room until one of the players turns into a
bad guy and everyone else has to work together to stop them before they
could complete their evil plans. Then I had tons of video games for the
old Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii."
"Had?" Henry asked, catching the past tense reference.
John suddenly looked embarrassed. "I had to sell it all off to keep my
room with Jim. I had a couple months between jobs..."
"Well Dad Sam still has his PS3 and Wii. I'm sure he'd let you use them
sometimes. And you start your new job tomorrow. It wouldn't take too long
to save up and by another one, or maybe a G-Sphere," Henry said, thinking
about the latest game system on the market.
"Well..." John said slowly. "Actually I'd like to save up for a car first.
That'll probably take several months..."
Henry made up his mind then and there that his birthday gift to John would
be a G-Sphere. "You got your driver's license?"
"Yeah," John nodded. "Jim was actually having a pleasant day and let me
use his car for the test."
"Good," Henry said, pausing as his watch alarm beeped. He glanced down at
it. "Movie starts in about half an hour... 'Bout finished?"
"Ugh," John exclaimed, leaning back from his half empty plate. "I'll have
to take the rest home. My stomach's just not big enough for all of this."
Henry motioned for the waiter and asked for the check and a takeout box for
John. He, naturally, had cleared his plate completely.
The movie was a good one called 'Blue Horizons', about an all human crew of
survivors fleeing an invading armada and searching for a secret passageway
to an isolated paradise planet where they would be safe and happy. They
sat side by side, cuddling together as they watched the film, resting their
heads together and petting each other tenderly. Henry's only complaint was
the complete absence of Spartans or even Amazons from the movie, but he
otherwise enjoyed it. *At least Zachary Sebastionson got that role on
'General Practice',* the Spartan thought, thinking of the Spartan who had
become bonded to an openly gay actor on the show and when the writers had
seen how loving they were towards each other, wrote the Spartan into the
show as the first openly Spartan actor on television. The actors mirrored
their true romance through their characters onscreen and what with the
perfect chemistry between them, word had it that Emmys for both of them
were a strong possibility in the near future.
After the movie, they walked outside. Henry looked at his watch and
frowned, feeling sad that it was already nine pm, which meant that the date
had to come to an end as they both had to work the next day. He took John
into his arms and kissed him, leaning down slightly as John was a good five
inches shorter than him. "Why does it have to be so late?" He sulked
gently with regret. "I don't want the night to end."
"Me neither," John said sadly, "but I start my new job tomorrow and it'd be
really bad manners to be late my very first day."
"You could spend the night at my place," Henry suggested. "I can drive you
over in the morning."
"But then you'd be late for work, or we'd have to be up even earlier so I
could go home and shower before opening." Henry frowned with
disappointment. "I want to be with you," John said, "but I also don't want
either of us in trouble with our bosses. I know you stretched things
pretty thin with your boss when I was in the hospital. you don't want to
lose your job, do you?"
"No, not really. But still... All week I really missed you."
"I missed you too," John said tenderly, hugging Henry again. "Say... How
close is your place?"
"Two blocks away. Why?"
"Think your dads would mind you spending the night over?"
"No, I'm sure they won't."
"The hospital isn't that much farther from the house than your apartment.
If you brought your uniform and a few bathroom supplies, you wouldn't have
to leave very much earlier and we could spend the night together without
any worries. If I already had my own car, I'd be willing to stay over, but
without it..."
"Okay," Henry said. "I want you to see my place, but staying over at the
house sounds better."
He led the way back to the car and drove over to his apartment. "Want to
come in and see it?"
"Sure," John answered.
The apartment was on the upper of the two floors of a large, sprawling
apartment complex of multiple buildings. Henry let them into his apartment
and turned on the lights, showing the place to be a typical bachelor's
apartment. By that, it meant that no two pieces of furniture matched. To
show his passion for TV and movies, there was a large screen three
dimensional television, V-card player for playing video card movies and
recorded TV shows and a large bookcase with storage racks holding a large
collection of V-cards of various movies and shows. Another bookcase on the
other side of the television held a large collection of paper books and an
electronic device on one of the shelves, the flat lap-sized computer about
the size of a small file folder laid turned off.
"You got a Ly-Reader?" John asked. They had only come out the previous
year, digital readers that could store over two hundred and fifty gigabytes
of documents, such as novels and plays. It was the latest in the series of
electronic reading devices to come down the line in recent years.
"Yeah. I used some of my tax return to get it. I like actual books, but
the Ly-Reader is good for traveling and work breaks when I can't figure out
what I want to read. Want a tour?"
"Sure," John said.
There wasn't much to see as the apartment was rather small. The living
room and dining area connected directly to the open-air kitchenette. The
hallway lead to the bathroom and lastly the bedroom, with featured a
double-sized bed. Henry seemed embarrassed by the bed itself.
"Maybe it's a good idea we're spending the night at the house," John said,
thinking of the queen-sized bed he used compared to Henry's bed.
"Yeah, sorry," Henry apologized weakly. "I hadn't..." He trailed off, too
ashamed to continue the thought. "Well, let me grab my stuff."
"Hey, grab some extra things," John said, wondering what Henry had refused
to say.
"Why?" the Spartan asked.
"So you can stay over on the weekends without having to run home for fresh
clothes."
"Okay," Henry said, brightening, walking over and kissing John.
The kissing became more heated and John reluctantly pulled away. "Not that
I'm not interested, but if we start anything now we'll both end up late for
work."
"Right," Henry sighed with regret.
They left soon afterwards and let themselves into the house quietly,
although the lights were still on. Sam came out from the kitchen to the
living room as they entered. "Have a good time?" he asked and they both
nodded. Sam noted the duffle bag in Henry's hand. He cut Henry off before
the man could speak. "You're more than welcome to spend the night, Son.
It's only natural to want to be with your partner, so feel free to stay
over as much as you want."
"Thanks, Dad Sam," Henry said gratefully.
"Yeah, sorry to spring this on you suddenly, Mr. Apolloson," John said
awkwardly.
"It's fine, and I told you no Mr. Apolloson. Call me Sam or Dad Sam,
okay? When we're at work it's 'Sir' or 'Head Priest' when we're among the
public and Sam the rest of the time, okay?"
"Alright," John answered nervously.
"Be ready to head to the temple by ten to nine, alright John? So don't stay
up too late and try to keep the noise down to a dull roar, okay?"
"Dad Sam! Stop that!" Henry groaned, blushing. "You're as bad as Fred!"
Sam laughed gently. "Good night boys," he said, heading for the stairs.
They made their way upstairs to John's bedroom and entered slowly. John
turned on the lamp on the dresser and Henry exploded loudly. "DAMMIT
FRED!!!" John stood there, staring at the bed in shock... Seeing that it
was covered entirely in condoms of various brands.
They heard snickering coming through the wall. Henry walked over and
slugged the barrier between the rooms almost hard enough to dent it.
"Knock it off Fucker, or I swear to Apollo I'll come in there and kick your
ass!"
"What is with all the yelling!" Sam said, barging in. "Dan has an early
meeting tomorrow, so stop shouting!" He stopped dead as he saw what Fred
had done, his mouth spasming, then he recovered and grew annoyed. "I'll go
talk to him," the parent said, leaving the room with a tired expression.
Henry sighed with disgust and set down his bag, then helped John clear the
condoms off the bed. John just swept them off to the floor at the foot of
the bed and Henry shoved them all to the side. "Seriously!" he said in
disbelief. "Where did he get all of these?"
"Looks like every bar in the area," John said, eying the various
advertisements on them.
"Dammit Fred," Henry sighed. "Are you really that desperate to find your
partner?"
"You don't think he's being too risky, do you?" John asked with worry.
"No, he's smart even if he always acts like an idiot. I know he wants kids
someday and with this many condoms, I can tell he uses them himself. I
know that last thing he wants is to get infected with HIV or SRV!"
"SRV?" John asked. Henry sighed and explained about the virus. "Well
maybe I should get tested," John said.
"You already were. It's standard practice at the hospital to do full
bloodwork on new patients who are comatose so the doctors can see if
there's anything besides the injuries to deal with. They said you had a
clean bill of health and Lord Joshua must have healed everything about you,
so I know you're healthy now. I get my monthly required bloodwork done
tomorrow and I'll show you the results once I get them. I know I'm clean,
but that way you can see the proof with your own eyes."
"Alright," John said.
"But still..." Henry said slowly, feeling both shocked and saddened, "I
never realized just how desperate Fred must be to find his partner."
"It's really that big a deal to Spartans, huh?" John asked.
"Yeah, It's the most important thing in our lives."
They settled down for the night, John sleeping nude as usual and Henry,
after a bit of silent debating with himself, did likewise. They didn't
make love, though, but mostly just to spite Fred...